In this six-session class, taught by Maria Pulzetti and Rabbi Adam Zeff, we will consider how Jewish law and American law address and affect people with disabilities, including physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and mental illness. We will study ways in which the law treats everyone equally and ways in which legal systems include accommodations for people with disabilities. In American law, what ethical issues arise in representing a person with disabilities? In Jewish law, how are people with disabilities obligated in mitzvot, and how are communities obligated to include them? When is a person with disabilities liable to be punished for a crime? As in previous years, we will study sources from Jewish law and American law, all available in English. Session topics will include capacity; public accommodations and public space; education; poverty and income supports/tzedakah; employment and leadership roles; and criminal law. All are welcome to learn with us! Sessions run from 12:30-1:30 PM on October 6, November 3, December 1, February 2, March 2, April 6.
Click here for a full session outline on what is to be covered.
Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit for PA lawyers is available through S. Freedman and Company, Inc. for an additional $35 per credit hour. If you are requesting CLE credit for this course, please note that an Attorney Affirmation and an Evaluation Form will need to be submitted after each session. You will receive these session-specific documents the morning of each session. These documents are to be returned via email to S. Freedman and Company, Inc. at the end of the course. CLE questions can be emailed to Susan Freedman at susanfreedman@comcast.net.
ABOUT THE TEACHERS:
Maria Pulzetti is a student at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she seeks to integrate her love of Torah into her work toward justice, dignity and wholeness for all people. She finds sacred connection in learning people’s stories and being present with them through times of challenge, transition and joy. She is honored to serve GJC, her family’s spiritual home, as student rabbi. Maria also works as a lawyer at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, where she provides direct services to her low-income clients and leads systemic advocacy to strengthen social safety net programs. Maria was a public defender for twelve years. Before that, she was the founding executive director of the Moscow-based Russian Justice Initiative, a human rights litigation project. When she was 18, she co-founded the Day of Silence, a student-led day of action against the silencing and erasure of LGBTQ people in schools. Maria lives in Philadelphia with her wife and two children. She received her BA from the University of Virginia and her JD from Yale Law School.
Rabbi Adam Zeff has served as Rabbi at Germantown Jewish Centre since 2010, after previously serving as Assistant Rabbi (2007-2010) and Student Rabbi (2002-2007). He received a B.A. in Anthropology from Yale University in 1990, a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, and rabbinic ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) in 2007. Rabbi Zeff is active in religious dialogue with Christian and Muslim clergy and is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia. As someone who grew up Reform, experimented with Orthodoxy in college, studied at a Reconstructionist seminary, and is a member of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Zeff is comfortable in a wide variety of Jewish settings and modes of worship and practice. His core conviction is that diversity in Jewish life and in the wider world is the truest expression of the divine.
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